“‘A’ is for All Lives Matter - Although all lives are not treated as collateral / When harshening our stance on immigration / All lives are not disproportionately detained / And abused in racist deportations / And actually all lives do no [sic] account for 40% of U.S. / and 15% of U.K. prison populations / Which is alarming considering the matter / Of lives now lived out in mass incarceration.”

Before I even begin, no this isn’t a personal attack on Bex, and I’m not even aiming this at them. I just feel that their tweet brings up the conversation.

Hispanics are constantly portrayed as uneducated and dumb in media. This mistreatment on screen translates to the real world, and I know this deeply. As a Hispanic person in the sciences, I have always faced discrimination based on my race from teachers and my peers. And it has always been like this for me, and it’s all I’ll ever know. Whenever there is a tan character on screen, they are always just some sort of comedic relief that never receives any character development. They are the ones the other characters make fun of, call stupid, but expect the world from at the end of the day. Sounds a lot like Lance right? He is always there supporting his fellow paladins and saying nice things about them, yet is just called stupid back.

I just want more shows, especially those aimed for kids to display Hispanics with a positive attitude. I want kids to know that we are more than just the joke character, we are not dumb, and that we are worth getting praise- especially when we are expected to do all the hard work.

Racism is still everywhere, and most people don’t even notice when they are contributing. But I notice because I live with it every day. I am sure Bex only means well from this tweet, but I feel that they don’t understand how hurtful it is to say “we tease cause we care” because this is what children have to live with every day. We shouldn’t be teaching the next generation of latinx children that it’s okay for them to be teased, we should be telling them that they are worthy of respect.

So please, stop telling everyone that Hispanics are the dumb ones. Kids will look up to Lance, they shouldn’t feel that his mistreatment is normal.

The conservatism that thrives today is the conservatism of Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk, of Jordan Peterson and Donald Trump. Personalities void of intellectualism, peddling garbage to people who love junk food.

In this article, David Frum takes apart the record of Dinesh D’Souza, a crank who wishes that elites and elite institutions would like him, and who peddles insane revisionist history such as “Democrats are the real Nazis” and “The cultural left in the US is responsible for 9/11.”

But Dinesh is no fringe character. He’s on the masthead of the National Review. Thousands upon thousands of people have watched his latest movie. His popularity is an indictment of conservatism today. While conservatism as a philosophy is an important counterweight to liberal ideology, conservatism today is largely extremism blended with a desire to make as much money as possible.

It’s also, as Frum notes, rage at rejection. Nobody who actually knows anything about history takes Dinesh seriously. Those people have torn apart his ridiculous ideas like they’re nothing. But today’s conservatism thrives on that rage, on anger that your bigotry isn’t being coddled anymore, anger that you’re not making as much money as you would like, anger that your masculinity isn’t valued as it once was. Dinesh is constantly furious on Twitter at those who don’t take him seriously, and it’s telling. He wants acceptance but will never find it.

And this is why the modern age is such a dangerous time. We’re living in the ruins of conservatism. Reagan economic policy gutted social programs and universities. Bush drove us into a recession and pushed us into never-ending war. Trump is stoking racial tensions while enabling as much corruption as humanly possible.

What conservatives need to do is find a serious way forward. Conservative experts need to come up with serious conservative ideas that will function in the modern age. But instead we have people like Ben Shapiro challenging politicians to debate him in exchange for an illegal campaign donation. What a world we live in.

even if you think the plot isn’t that great, *please* support Marvel’s Runaways

It’s one of the only shows I’ve seen to have such a diverse cast -it’s adopted from the comic series Runaways, and they have a Japanese-American bisexual lead, a girl who’s Jewish in the comics played by a Mexican Jewish actress (and her parents as well), a Hispanic character played by a Hispanic actress, a black lead who isn’t the usual jock stereotype and he’s the brains of the whole thing, Virginia Gardner’s character discovering her sexuality (and getting a girlfriend) and the whole thing is done really really well!

We need to try and support shows that have this kind of diversity, like Sense8, which got another season and a movie. While the CW tells us it would be too much to expect a Jewish lesbian actress, the Runaways series has a Jewish girl with a whole personality that has nothing to do with the usual stereotypes, and Sense8 has eight LGBT+ characters and even in one character (Nomi’s) introduction sequence, you hear her talking about what it means for her to be trans and an activist, and you also see her getting married to her equally badass girlfriend, not fulfilling any of the usual stereotypes.

The author of the article knows but doesn’t clearly state that “welfare” as in cash assistance, in most cases any form of social security, and long term disability care people are already under these restrictions-we’re talking about food stamps, medicaid, etc. under the new proposal. We should be clear what we’re talking about when we use the word “welfare” because rich assholes and rightwingers will call literally anything welfare.

But “public charge” rules should also be thrown out around things like TANF and SSI too. This targeting of poor immigrants-especially disabled ones and parents-needs to end across the board.

There’s been anti chinese graffiti happening in my neighborhood this week. Somebody had the time to make a stencil, buy spraypaint, go up to Chinese businesses and vandalize their properties. It’s very upsetting and it’s uncomfortable to see hate crimes grow.